“Until lawmakers end the catch-and-release policies of the Obama
administration,” said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration
Studies, “any infrastructure improvements, new strategies, and better
metrics are pointless.”

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

In case you hadn’t noticed, our Afghan War, like some oil-slicked bird in the Gulf of Mexico, has been dragged under the waves. It’s largely off front pages and out of the TV spotlight (despite the possible linkage of the Times Square failed car bombing to the Pakistani Taliban). As a result, most Americans undoubtedly have little idea just how large the American war effort there has grown. The president’s massive surge -- not just of troops, but of State Department civilians, CIA agents, drones, contractors, base building, and who knows what else -- is actually going (if you’ll excuse the phrase) great guns.

As it turns out, however, not everyone is quite as enthusiastic about the surge as Washington. NATO allies have not provided the expected number of trainers for the Afghan police and military in the expected period of surge time. They're dragging their feet over a war that is far less popular and more controversial in Europe than here. Because the almost hopeless task of standing up a vast, effective Afghan military (which that impoverishe d country has no way of affording) and an incorruptible police force (an oxymoron when it comes to Afghanistan) is considered so crucial to Washington's war strategy, the Pentagon has stepped in. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently announced a further micro-surge. It seems that 850 U.S. military trainers will be dispatched to Afghanistan, supposedly for only 90-120 days, as a “stopgap measure.” This evidently doesn’t qualify as an actual part of the surge plan -- or as much in the way of news. On the heels of another grim Pentagon assessment of the war effort, the Obama administration continues to escalate.

And consider this proposition: no one ever surged for free. Or how about, in Field of Dreams movie-style, this: If they surge, sooner or later we must pay.

During the 2008 election campaign and after, Barack Obama promised that he would turn off the well-paved war-funding road the Bush administration had driven down many times in which requests to Congress for more war-fighting money were made as “supplementals,” outside the annual Pentagon budget request. Once Obama decided to surge in a big way, however, it was a foregone conclusion that that vow would be broken. And, though (again) it’s gotten remarkably little attention, his administration is now asking for an extra $33 billion (plus a couple of billion dollars more for the State Department) to hel p cover soaring Afghan war costs. This is, of course, the proverbial road to Hell, as David Swanson, the author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, who covers Washington and our wars like a blanket at his website War Is a Crime (formerly After Downing Street), makes all too painfully clear. By the way, to catch Timothy MacBain's TomCast audio interview with Swanson on the media, Congress, and the administration's latest request for escalation funding, click here or, to download to your iPod, here. Tom

MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.comFAIRUS.orgJUDICIALWATCH.orgALIPAC.usPUTTING THE MEXICAN OCCUPIERS’ RACISM, CRIME TIDAL WAVES, ANCHOR BABY BREEDING FOR WELFARE COSTS, MEXICAN FLAG WAVING ASIDE, HOW CAN ANY POLITICIAN JUSTIFY AMNESTY WHETHER OFFICIAL, OR THE LA RAZA DEMS’ bit by bit by bit NON-ENFORCEMENT AMNESTY???THERE ARE ONLY EIGHT (8) STATES WITH A LARGER POPULATION THAN LOS ANGELES COUNTY, NOW UNDER MEXICAN OCCUPATION. HERE, 47% OF ALL JOBS GO TO ILLEGALS USING STOLEN SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS AS THIS COUNTY PAYS OUT $600 MILLION PER YEAR IN WELFARE TO ILLEGALS (source: JUDICIAL WATCH).AT A TIME OF NATIONAL CRISIS, HISPANDERING OBAMA, THE CONGRESSIONAL HISPANIC CAUCUS (LA RAZA), FEINSTEIN, BOXER, PELOSI, BECERRA (LA RAZA PARTY), BACA (LA RAZA PARTY) SANCHEZ SISTERS (LA RAZA PARTY), FARR, AND NEVADA’S HARRY REID ARE STILL IN THE BACK ROOMS WITH WALL STREET INTERESTS AND LA RAZA TO SHOVE ANOTHER AMNESTY SCAM ON US!!!CAN WE AFFORD RE-ELECT THESE HISPANDERERS?VOTE STEVE POIZNER FOR GOV MEXIFORNIA! HE WILL END THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE.VOTE TOM CAMPBELL TO REPLACE LA RAZA BARBARA BOXER. HE WILL END THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE!DO NOT VOTE FOR GOLDMAN SACH’S BOUGHT HISPANDERING WHORE MEG WHITMAN!!!*The Obama administration welcomes mass unemployment as a hammer to destroy the gains workers have won over decades of struggle and to increase the exploitation of the working class. Its view of a “post-recession America” is one where the working class accepts perpetually high levels of joblessness, a drastic and permanent reduction in consumption and wage levels that are “competitive” with the lowest wage countries.*

MOST OF THE FORTUNE 500 ARE GENEROUS DONORS TO LA RAZA – THE MEXICAN FASCIST POLITICAL PARTY.

These figures are dated! THE MEXICAN OCCUPATION BY INVITATION NOW DEPRESSES WAGES FOR LEGALS $300 - $400 BILLION PER YEAR!

“The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.” Christian Science Monitor

WSWS.ORG get on their free no ads emails!

Record levels of long-term unemployment in US

11 May 2010Despite the pronouncements by the Obama administration and the news media of a supposed economic recovery, unemployment, and particularly long-term joblessness, continues to inflict immense suffering on tens of millions of workers and their families in the US. At present some 15 million workers are officially unemployed, including one out of every five men between the ages of 25 and 54.In many ways, the protracted character of the economic downturn and magnitude of the social distress it has caused rival that of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Last week, the Labor Department reported that 6.7 million unemployed workers—or 46 percent of the total—have been without a job for six months or longer, the highest percentage since the government began collecting such data in 1948. In April, the average unemployed worker had been jobless for five months, also a record.A recent study conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, “No End in Sight: The Agony of Prolonged Unemployment,” found that 80 percent of 1,200 unemployed people interviewed in August 2009 were still out of work in March 2010. Of those one in five who managed to find work, over half had to take a pay cut from what they earned in their prior jobs, “and about a quarter took a significant salary hit.”Obama hailed as “very encouraging” last week’s Labor Department report that 290,000 jobs had been added to the economy. The job total, however, is well below the number that must be added each month—over the course of the next four years—just to keep up with the increased demand of new workers entering the job market.The official jobless rate of 9.9 percent in April is a gross underestimation. If millions of “discouraged” workers who have given up searching for work were added, along with those forced to work part-time, the real jobless rate would be 17.1 percent. All told, there were nearly 27 million workers either unemployed or underemployed in April.The unemployment crisis has taken a devastating toll on workers and their families. According to a recent report, “Hunger in America 2010,” 49.1 million Americans—nearly one in six—were identified as “food insecure” in December 2008, even before the full impact of the recession was felt.Figures released last week from the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), showed a record 39.4 million people are receiving food stamps—a 22 percent increase from a year ago and the 14th consecutive month the number of recipients has increased. Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Utah saw increases of 33 to 47 percent.With millions of the long-term unemployed facing the exhaustion of their benefits, the Democrats and Republicans are stalling on proposals to extend the number of weeks jobless workers can qualify for government relief. Moreover, federal stimulus money is scheduled to run out this year, threatening to put hundreds of thousands more teachers, firefighters and other public sector workers on the unemployment lines.Several economists have warned of a “double-dip” recession in the US, triggered by the sovereign debt crisis in Greece and other European countries. Even before the onset of a new economic downturn, White House officials acknowledge millions of jobs lost during the recession will never come back.Last month, Obama’s chief economic advisor, Lawrence Summers, said, “A good guess … is that when the economy recovers five years from now, one in six men who are 25 to 54 will not be working.” Speaking in St. Louis last week, Paul Volcker, another Obama adviser, said Americans needed to be prepared for a “long slog” and that “unemployment will be too high for far too long.”Obama and his advisers have rejected out of hand any proposals for a government funded public works program to hire the unemployed. “There are limits to what the government can do,” the president said last week, emphasizing again that, “the true engine of job growth in this country will always be the private sector.” Rejecting any government spending to create jobs, Summers said last month, “Is this the moment for some major new experiment in Keynesian pump-priming? Absolutely, no.”Every one of the administration’s initiatives—from the bailout of Wall Street, to the forced bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler and the attack on auto workers, to the cost-cutting health care plan, to its plans to gut entitlement programs—has been aimed at augmenting the wealth and power of the financial and corporate elite.The Obama administration welcomes mass unemployment as a hammer to destroy the gains workers have won over decades of struggle and to increase the exploitation of the working class. Its view of a “post-recession America” is one where the working class accepts perpetually high levels of joblessness, a drastic and permanent reduction in consumption and wage levels that are “competitive” with the lowest wage countries.This is the program of every capitalist regime in the world, from Greece, to Britain, to Japan. The working class is being forced to pay for the bankrupting of society caused by the massive transfer of public money to the banks.If workers are to avoid a relentless descent into pauperism they must initiate a struggle to defend the right to jobs and a decent standard of living for all. This requires a struggle to mobilize the entire working class against the Obama administration and both big business parties, and to advance a socialist alternative to the capitalist profit system they defend.The Socialist Equality Party calls for an emergency program of public works to provide every unemployed worker with a good-paying job within six months. Trillions of dollars must be made available to rebuild the decaying social infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, public housing, roads, water and sewage systems and other public facilities.This should be combined with measures to alleviate the hardships brought on by the world capitalist crisis, including an end to foreclosures, evictions and utility shutoffs, an increase in the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and a reduction in the workweek to 30 hours at 40 hours’ pay.We reject the claim that there is “no money” to provide for the needs of the population. The trillions expended on war and the bailout of the wealthy must be redirected to meet social needs. The fantastic wealth accumulated by the corporate and financial elite—often through fraud and criminality—must be reclaimed.The subordination of economic life to the capitalist principle of private profit must be abolished. The major banks and corporations must be transformed into public utilities, democratically controlled by the population and dedicated to meeting social needs.Jerry White

Associated Press Writer – Mon May 10, 4:41 pm ET TOPEKA, Kan. – When politicians and police across the country want to crack down on illegal immigration, they often reach out to the same man: a little-known Kansas attorney with an Ivy League education who is the architect behind many of the nation's most controversial immigration laws. Kris Kobach could not attend West Point because of diabetes, but he regards his efforts on immigration as a substitute for military service. "They can't call him trailer park trash, which is the kind of comment you hear about advocates on our side," said Michael Hethmon, director of the Washington-based Immigration Reform Law Institute. Kobach helps draft proposed laws and, after they are adopted, trains officers to enforce them. If the laws are challenged, he goes to court to defend them. His most recent project was advising Arizona officials on a new law that empowers police to question anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally. Critics say it violates the Constitution's provisions against unreasonable search and seizure by allowing police to engage in racial profiling.

But Kobach insists an officer stopping a crowded van for a traffic violation has a reasonable suspicion its occupants are illegal immigrants if none of them has an ID, the van is traveling a known smuggling route and the driver is evasive.

"I could not care less whether they come from Mexico or Germany or Japan or China," said Kobach, who speaks with the affable air of a college professor, even when making cutting political remarks. "An alien who also is here with terrorist intentions can carry any passport. This isn't about race or national origin." Before the law was passed last month, Kobach spent several years consulting with its main sponsor. And he has a $300-an-hour contract to teach deputies in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, to enforce immigration policies. Detractors are not impressed by Kobach's degrees from Harvard, Oxford and Yale, or the coveted White House fellowship he served during George W. Bush's first term. While at the White House, he created a post-9/11 Justice Department program requiring immigrants from 25 mostly Muslim nations who were already in the U.S. to re-register with the federal government. Civil libertarians argued that it led to unwarranted detentions of law-abiding immigrants. "He promotes himself as absolutely, positively being a constitutional scholar on these issues, and he's just wrong," said Bill Brewer, a Dallas attorney who has faced off with Kobach in court over immigration laws in Farmers Branch, Texas. Kobach, a 44-year-old lifelong Republican with movie-star good looks, learned as a Topeka teenager that diabetes would keep him from a desired appointment to West Point. His focus on immigration developed after Sept. 11, when as an aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft, he and other Justice Department officials learned some of the 9/11 attackers had lived in the U.S. illegally. "It was a missed opportunity of tragic dimensions," Kobach said. "That realization struck home with me. People were saying, 'How could we have prevented this?'" After leaving Washington, he returned to Kansas and to a job on the University of Missouri-Kansas City law school faculty that he'd had since 1996, then launched a campaign for Congress. He lost. But Kobach drew attention by challenging a Kansas law that reduced tuition rates for illegal immigrants. The law survived, but frustrated conservatives took note of his work. Mayor Lou Barletta, of Hazleton, Pa., called Kobach in 2006 to discuss a proposal to fine landlords who rent to illegal immigrants and to deny permits to businesses hiring them. Kobach later defended the law in federal court. The mayor said he contacted Kobach after a news report quoted him saying Hazleton had the authority to enact such an ordinance, contradicting other legal scholars. "It really only took one conversation to realize that he truly knew what he was talking about," Barletta recalled. Kobach largely wrote and then defended a similar ordinance in Valley Park, Mo., that was upheld by a federal appeals court. Last year, he defended Farmers Branch, Texas, in a federal lawsuit targeting its landlord law. And this year, he represented residents of Fremont, Neb., outside Omaha, as they forced a vote on their own immigration proposals. Federal judges struck down the Farmers Branch and Hazleton ordinances, but both are on appeal. Kobach also wrote sections of a 2008 Missouri law cracking down on illegal immigration and this year drafted an unsuccessful proposal in Idaho requiring employers to screen workers. Kobach said he's consulted with legislators in at least six other states on various measures. "I would say he is the brain behind most of them," said Muzaffar Chishti, director of the Migration Policy Institute's office at the New York University School of Law. Kobach, elected Kansas state GOP chairman in 2007, quit early last year to launch a campaign for secretary of state. His first proposal for legislators: require new voters to prove citizenship when they register and make all voters show photo IDs at the polls. "You can take steps to address the national security issues and still be left with the problem of millions of people here illegally taking jobs in a recession from lawful residents," he said. Critics suggest Kobach's immigration work is designed to boost his political career. A "Krazy Kris Kobach" website features an anonymous blogger who exhorts followers to end Kobach's career. Arizona state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, a Phoenix Democrat and attorney who voted against her state's new law, said Kobach is not to be underestimated.

It is known that approximately 8.7 miillion illegals now hold jobs, within our United States, that they illegally obtained, using forged, and/or stolen identities. It is against our existing laws, for an illegal to be employed, by anyone, anywhere, within our United States.

These are jobs that Americans will do. Jobs in construction, manufacturing, and food processing.

E-Verify will give these jobs back to unemployed American citizens.

The current unemployment rate among blacks is 12.6%

Blacks suffer the most from the many millions of illegals competing for the same jobs

In the last 22 years, since the Reagan one-time amnesty, over 26 million illegals have been apprehended, after they crossed the border into our United States.

Politicians pushing for amnesty (they want us to support more illegals)

Unemployment is at it's highest levels since the Great Depression. Forty million people in the US are getting food stamps.One in every five people rely on the government to pay for their housing. How's that for "change you believe in"...There's going to be even more change when the hundreds of thousands of even MORE illegals from Arizona start heading to California this summer ahead of the new Arizona immigration law,and in search of the welcoming arms of Newsom, Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein, and now Witman...Warms the heart doesn't it.